


the kind of love it takes to solve them

by kenopsia (indie)



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Asexual Lovett, M/M, Polyamory, The perfect date for the sex averse ace boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-10-27 07:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20756561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indie/pseuds/kenopsia
Summary: “Oh, is he up?” and he immediately feels a soft sheet land over his head, to protect him from the sunlight and the small talk.“Shh,” Ronan says. “It’s 8:15 — the love is still rendering.”





	the kind of love it takes to solve them

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misprinting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misprinting/gifts).

> Okay this was insanely hard because the _hands like an ocean_ verse has no flaws. I wanted a sequel and a prequel and a midquel and a commune version and a version that veered off when Lovett said "this is pg -- can we amp it up a notch" had Tommy replied, "Easy tiger" and slowed things down. @misprinting, hit me up after the reveals and I'll show you all the documents I had to go through to land here. 
> 
> You're fantastic. Incredible. A vision. I hope you like Date Night.

The first night Lovett has to upgrade from side stage of the campus cafe to a bigger venue, Tommy and Ronan are in the front row, beaming. It shouldn’t make Lovett feel any kind of — he loves them, they love him, he’s, whatever, he’s a badass with most of an undergrad degree and a date to take his LSAT that isn’t looming ominously at all. 

“AND HAVE! A GREAT! NIGHT EVERYBODY!” he shouts. Ira gets to him first, bumping his shoulder as he steps down. 

The big chapel is kind of a get, and after Lovett holds court for a few minutes with his adoring fans, he finds them. There had been talk of pizza, or maybe something a little less ordinary, to celebrate, but Lovett is a creature of habitual comforts. He likes pizza. He likes the adulation of his peers. He doesn’t have to veer out of his comfort zone for anything else. 

Which settles it. It is Lovett’s celebration, and he wants pizza. 

“I have to be real, my room is so grubby right now. I’ve been working on that set for three days, and it’s just like. Grimy. I spilled a diet coke right on comforter the other night and I just slept in Favs’ empty bed instead of dealing with it.”

“We know,” Tommy says, playfully, while he tucks Lovett under his arm, puts his nose against his temple. “It’s been a real treat to live with this deadline monster.” 

Ronan, who has had his fair share of deadline-monster qualities himself is suspiciously silent. His backpack is also — bulging suspiciously. Lovett keeps staring at it. 

“We’re going to get away for the weekend, if you want.”

Lovett looks between his boyfriends — partners. No one wears a ring, but once you tell Tommy Vietor, _ fine, you can have a big gay three way wedding, _aren’t you technically fiances? The point being, he looks between them. 

“We’re very proud of you,” Tommy says. 

“The big chapel was SRO,” Ronan says. 

“A getaway,” Lovett circles back. 

“Yeah,” Ronan says, squeezing Lovett’s hand. They’re of a size, legs and torso and fingers. Lovett loves it. “I was thinking we might stay the weekend in a hotel. If you want to?”

Hotel weekends, Lovett thought, conflicted. On the one hand, he did love climbing into clean sheets that he hadn’t had to put any effort into, and having access to a mattress that they all fit on comfortably. On the other hand, the phrase conjured a certain picture. 

It wasn’t that he was averse, now that he felt comfortable saying _ I’ll just watch from this chair, guys, let me know when you’re done _. “Of course,” Lovett said, worried he’d waited too long. 

Tommy grinned, reaching under his seat to pull out a pair of bags Lovett hadn’t noticed. One of them was his. 

They squashed into the backseat of a car. Ronan had packed a bag for him, but he’d still wanted to check. Lovett felt warm at the contents: his favorite sweats, a shirt that technically belonged to Tommy but that lovett acquisitioned for his own purposes that it probably common-law belonged to him, his DS. “Am I supposed to play Animal Crossing while you guys are getting it on?” 

“I don’t think there’s any getting it on on the agenda,” Ronan grinned.

Lovett frowned at him. Their driver wasn’t looking at them, but it was still weird, sometimes, to acknowledge their relationship in public. Over the summer, he and Tommy were both going to stay with Ronan at the farm for three weeks. “Weird trip you have planned, there,” Lovett said, out of the side of his mouth. 

Tommy leaned over and rested his shoulder on Lovett’s shoulder. “There’s always time for sex,” Tommy says. “This is your birthday, and we’re proud of you.”

“My birthday is _ long past. _Remember, you got me some truly gay shoes and a seventeen inch tirmasu?” 

“Jon,” Ronan said, jostling him from the side. “Will you just let us celebrate you?”

Tommy took his other hand, cupping it in the loose, friendly way, and raised it to his mouth. “Fully disclosure,” Tommy said, into their palms, “Ronan and I had a _ lot _of free time while you were stressing out about this show. We’ve had a busy week.”

Lovett had heard about Ronan and Tommy’s sex vacation the weekend he’d gone AWOL to deal with his own shit. It’s counterintuitive how much he loves the occasional thoughtful touches of being left out of things. “Can you store orgasms like a — sex camel?” Lovett balks. 

“Weird how Lovett just said orgasms really loud, but got quiet for the phrase _ sex camel. _” Ronan observed, looking past Lovett to grin at Tommy. 

Lovett splutters. “Frank is a _ professional. _He is definitely thinking his own thoughts.”

Frank flashed his eyes to Lovett’s in the rear view mirror very briefly when he heard his name before flicking his gaze back to the road. It was absolutely the downside of climbing into the middle. Lovett felt his face heat, but held onto Tommy’s hand. 

“Also,” he says, getting excited for the first time, “Stop bullying me. Is it my birthday or isn’t it?” 

*

They have been in a — suspiciously nice, Lovett thinks, squinting at the view and the massive bed and the fresh flowers and, — hotel room for all of fifteen minutes before Tommy gives a big, performative yawn. 

“Gee, you look tired from all that sex we just had,” Ronan teases him. 

Lovett knows he can blame media training for the frequency of phrases like _ gee _ and _ leaping lizards _ and _ heck no check no. _He rolls his eyes fondly. 

“Just minutes prior,” Tommy nods sagely.

“I must have missed that while I was _ sitting in between you in the cab. _” 

“Probably,” Ronan agrees. “You had a lot on your mind, ruminating on your success.” 

Lovett flops down onto the bed, belly down. It’s a king, and it feels just as cool and fresh beneath his face as he’d hoped. “This was a fucking crazy idea.”

Lovett’s pair of boyfriends look at him, soft and fond. Lovett is stricken, like he often has been in the past year, with the jarring knowledge that somehow he went from feeling like an unlovable mess to having the warm regard — the _ love _his brain supplies, and Lovett does not squirm against the thought — of two of the best, most interesting people he’s met. “We thought it might be fun. You’ve been working so hard and we’ve hardly seen you this week,” Tommy says. 

“Sorry,” Lovett starts. 

Ronan climbs into bed and lands on his bottom with a bounce. “Shush, Jonathan. This is a guilt free vacation, no sex, just snuggles.”

Tommy is fiddling with something, turning on music, low, before toeing out of his shoes. 

Some part of Lovett wants to say: _ you can have sex. We can have sex, _because that reflex is always there, and because he never wants to stop the two of them from doing what they like, never wants to feel like the limiting agent, and because he honestly likes that they have each other to get off with, likes the visual of it sometimes, the thick intimacy of being nearby, or of being helpful, sometimes, and the aftereffects of a pair of pliable boyfriends easy with their affection. 

But he’s trying to get out of his own way. Just like there are nights when Lovett comes up against the desire to do more that he actually wants to make Tommy or Ronan happy, if they’ve come to the decision that he deserves a no-dick date night, he isn’t going to be an ingrate about it. 

“Alright ,” he says. “What’s on the agenda. Are we going to play a little dungeons and dragons? Tommy, did you do some deep research and are you prepared to DM? Ronan, have you prepared an edutainment presentation about axolotls?” 

“No, you monster,” Tommy says, laughing. “We’re just going to spend some time together. Unstructured time.” 

“I brought a book,” Ronan says.

Lovett wiggles his toes inside his shoes, and turns his face to hide a grin against the seafoam green of the sheets. A no-sex vacation. A standing room packed out show in the big chapel. Tommy. Ronan. A saturday with no obligations and none of his own clutter and detritus. His head already feels like it has rooms and rooms of space. 

“Tommy, get in,” he says, and Tommy moves to the other side of him, shucking his jeans. He hems him in, wasting no time in touching the nape of his neck and down the curve of his spine. “This is nice,” Lovett says, the warm bulk of Ronan on his other side bracketing him in. 

*

It was late on friday when they arrived, at least ten thirty, and Lovett really couldn’t be blamed for drifting off, but he jolts up at 12:36 am in actual pajamas, which is weird. 

Tommy, who Lovett is apparently draped over, reacts to Lovett flinching awake. “Oh, hey,” he says, voice warm. 

“Which one of you redressed me like a rag doll?”

“It was a team sport,” Ronan says. The tv is on but the volume is too low to hear., Lovett gets the sense that he’s interrupted some carrying on and buries his face back into the broad bulk of Tommy’s chest. He can feel Ronan’s fingertips land on his back to trace patterns there. Lovett loves the aimlessness there. Tommy nuzzles into his hair at the crown of his head, breathing in deeply. 

“Don’t let me interrupt your conversation,” Lovett says, arching his back to stretch. He’s warm in his sweats and under a blanket and practically painted across Tommy, but one of them has turned the air down low enough that his exposed skin is keeping him cool. 

“We were just bullshitting,” Tommy says. “You fell asleep so fast you didn’t get a chance to enjoy the non-seduction.”

Lovett rolls off of Tommy, landing squarely in between them. He really could get used to a mile of bed. “Sorry to foil any plans,” he says. Ronan is in his glasses, which is among Lovett’s favorite looks. 

“It’s fine,” Ronan says. “It was very charming. You were like, in the middle of demanding a snack and then you were drooling.” 

“It was only Tommy that saved you from getting jelly beans in your sleeping mouth,” Ronan mutters, mutinously. Lovett is very attracted to Ronan in his moments of tame deviousness. He and Tommy — they can be pissy, bitchy, brash, but it’s much more rare to see it from Ronan. 

“Tommy! I love you. You are the best person. But next time, you can let Ronan put jelly beans in my mouth. There are so few occasions to have joy in this life.” 

“Thank you,” Ronan huffs. Tommy laughs at him, putting his hands in Lovett’s hair.

“It’s midnight. Are you guys sleepy, or like —” Lovett asks.

“No,” Tommy says.

“I have never slept in my entire life,” Ronan says. 

Ronan leans over the bed to root around in his duffel bag, and comes back up with a bag of peach rings. Lovett has a fond moment, looking at them. Ronan used to not drink, because he felt he’d missed the moment by being entirely too young for the entirety of his undergrad career, and living with a professor besides, but someone let him put peach schnapps in a pineapple soda one time and suddenly, there he was, a certified imbiber. Ronan tells the story fondly sometimes when he gets high and doesn’t realize he’s got a craving. Ronan feeds him the first one out of the bag, because love is patient et al. 

Tommy’s hands are still in his hair — fingernails catching just right in his scalp, occasionally giving Lovett a full body shiver — while Lovett munches happily on his midnight snack. 

“We have cards,” Ronan says. 

“And you have that town,” Tommy says, like he doesn’t know the names and favorite villagers of both Lovett and Ronan’s games. 

Ronan rolls his eyes. “Not quite as convincing as when Lovett pretends he doesn’t have a pretty good handle on the football rules.”

“The fact that you think _ Lovett _has a pretty good handle — ”

“I find those air quotes to be hurtful, frankly.”

“Sorry, Lo,” Tommy says, tangling his legs between and against Lovett’s. 

“It’s fine,” Lovett says. “I’m glad there is a boyfriend who knows less about sports than me.” A joke occurs to him, about hating to be on the bottom of anything, but he shelves it. 

Lovett reaches a hand behind himself, holding out his hand and he Ronan puts another peach ring in it. Lovett rolls his eyes but puts it in his mouth before trying again, and this time Ronan obliges by giving him his hand and letting Lovett wrap it around himself like a seatbelt. It reels him in, making Ronan nestle in close behind his back. “We need one of these,” Lovett mumbles. 

Tommy gets the remote and turns the tv off. “We’re not that far off from massive bed shopping,” he tells Lovett. Lovett leans up to press a kiss to his mouth. Tommy reacts, gingerly, moving soft and slow against him. Ronan has a hand on his belly, which went from being something that made him jerk with anxiety to something he enjoyed when it became an established protocol that Lovett did not, in general, want fingertips to dip into his waistband without express permission for the mission. 

Ronan kissed the back of Lovett’s shoulder, before resting his face there, lazy. Lovett wondered what the game plan was for a no-orgasms weekend. If Ronan got hard against him, would he be apologetic? Lovett wouldn’t want that. 

“You can get hard,” Lovett says magnanimous, and he realized as soon as he’d said it that he was much sleepier than he’d thought a minute ago. 

*

Most mornings, Lovett needs a good fifteen or twenty minutes to lie on his side, curled up with his phone. It lets him buffer, exorcising cranky Lovett elsewhere. 

Ronan is already awake when he starts to stir. He knows this because before Lovett even opens his eyes, he hears Tommy ask, from across the room, “Oh, is he up?” and he immediately feels a soft sheet land over his head, to protect him from the sunlight and the small talk. 

“Shh,” Ronan says. “It’s 8:15 — the love is still rendering.” 

Lovett mumbles several choice phrases under his breath, mean ones he doesn’t really mean, but before nine he can be convinced he does. 

He can hear intermittent rustling, the kind that means Tommy probably has an actual textbook and highlighter out for, and Lovett feels low-level cranky about that, too. 

From under his sheet, Lovett opens his phone. He does a quick cycle of apple news and twitter and accidentally goes back to the news before he jolts himself and opens up the texts. 

_ You’re both the best, _he types in their group message. 

“Aw, the love is coming in,” Ronan says, patting him softly on the curve of his bottom through the sheet. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Lovett mumbles, and is gratified to hear them both laugh. 

Lovett can hear them milling about, kissing a little, rustling, using the bathroom and playing a few rounds of speed on the floor before Lovett feels ready to face the day. When he finally climbs sits up, Tommy is sitting with his long legs spread out, crossed at the ankles. The morning light colors him just right, golden and warm. 

“Okay. It’s daytime, now,” Lovett informs them. 

“Gracious of you to fire the starting pistol,” Ronan says, mouth quirking up. He’s wrapped in a towel around his waist and is using a second, smaller towel to dry his hair. 

“Changed my mind,” Lovett says. “Come get back in, both of you.” 

“No way,” Ronan says. “We are going to go enjoy the hot tub.”

“At nine AM?” Lovett asks, bewildered. 

“No competition,” Ronan says. 

“You just showered.” 

“I’ll take another one later. Come on, Lovett, come play, and then when we get back, we’ll put you in the tub and wash your hair. I brought a bath bomb.” 

Lovett doesn’t have to be told twice. “Do I have trunks? I didn’t notice the trunks.” 

“I couldn’t find any,” Ronan admits, reaching for his own bag. “But I picked these up and I hope you like them.” 

Lovett examines his new trunks, which are somewhere between blush and melon, and are exactly as short as Lovett wants them to be to make the right statement. “I love them,” he blurts, instead of _ I love you. _It seems trite to say after gifts, the way people sometimes say it after sex. But he thinks he can say it another way, maybe. “You’re so thoughtful,” he tells Ronan. 

Ronan moves into his orbit to nuzzle into him, cheek to cheek, and Lovet shivers at the drag of it. He loves Ronan with next day stubble. Ronan waits for Lovett to chase a kiss, content just to be close and stroke from his shoulder to his wrist. 

When they get down to it, the pool isn’t empty, but Ronan was right, the spa is empty enough. Tommy turns on the bubbles. 

He groans when his body hits the water, and Ronan bites his bottom lip to keep from laughing. “Gross,” Lovett jokes. 

Nothing about Tommy is gross. Lovett wants to climb into his lap. The only thing that stops him is the crowd in the pool. “How long have you guys been planning this?”

Ronan makes a thoughtful noise. “The day you told me we needed to take Tommy to the Naval Museum, I guess? More or less? We were going to take you out for your birthday, really, but then we realized that Favs would cry if we took you all weekend.” 

On Lovett’s actually birthday week, he’d had a date night, and then had gone to a bowling bar with Emily and Jon, and then an actual bar with his gay friends. “Probably a good call,” Lovett said, looking at Ronan out of the corner of his eye. 

“It was just — thoughtful. And just for Tommy. And you packed themed snacks. That night we were both like.” 

“Lovett needs a perfect day,” Tommy finishes for him. “Because you’re thoughtful and you make a lot of compromises to care for other people. And, you know, we see that.”

Lovett feels him pulse go up, and hopes that any flushing is masked by how truly warm he is. “Guys, that’s really gay.”

Tommy winks at him.

They sat there, hot water swirling until they had to jump into the pool at the risk of heat stroke, and then climbed back in. They kept accidentally touching each other, feet and elbows and ankles. 

It was too warm in the water and the sun to really want to be cozy, but while the flesh is weak, the spirit is willing. He keeps nudging them. Eventually, he says, “You guys ready to head back up?”

Both of his white boyfriends have pinked up under the sun. If they start to peel later he will make fun of them for sure. Both of his boyfriends are also ready to go back to the room, where Lovett throws open the windows and luxuriates in the broad, sweeping light coming in. They’re on the sixth floor, and Lovett feels comfortable dropping his trunks when he gets into the room to climb into fresh clothes, Tommy’s shirt and fresh underpants. 

“So,” Lovett says. It’s noon on a weekend built to spec. He can’t stop smiling, and keeps trying to school his face out of what he can feel is an objectively goofy expression. “What do you have planned? Because we’ve already been to the Naval history exhibit.” 

“A shame that we wasted the perfect date on me,” Tommy says. 

“A real bummer,” Lovett agrees. 

“Luckily, we do have a bath bomb and Super Mario Maker 2 and also, not to brag, but like. A lot of stamina.”

“Oh?” Lovett raises an eyebrow. “Not sure what we’re going to need stamina for. Heard this was a no stamina weekend.” 

“We’re going to nuzzle you so hard,” Ronan says. He is using his genuine sexy voice, the one he uses when Tommy is between his legs. Once, notably, while Tommy was out of town and Lovett watched with interest as Ronan jerked himself off while Tommy was on speakerphone. 

“For so long,” Tommy added. 

It is — it should be — a bananas thing to say. Lovett should not be — it would be idiotic for his pulse to skyrocket. “Can we do that first?”

*

Lovett only made the one obligatory “undress to your comfort level” joke when he climbed into the hotel bed, reclining on his back. Ronan stretched out against the length of him, kissing the side of his face in little pecking kisses, and held his left hand. 

Tommy crouched on his right side, pulling up Lovett’s shirt touch stroke long, ticklish touches from the point of one hipbone, in start relief with him on his back, to another. Leaned down to mouth at Lovett’s stomach, no moisture or suction. Just undivided attention. Tommy’s palms, smoothing. Lovett could drift off; Lovett has never felt more awake.

There was this thing Lovett loved about Ronan, which stood out among all of the qualities that one could love about Ronan, and that was how truly chatty he could be while in the middle of — well. He wasn’t having sex, now, actually, but the principal applied. He’d have full TED talks between kisses, he’d spurt off non-sequiturs with Tommy’s cock in him, pausing only when overwhelmed or to make noises that were less conversational and more guttural before going back to what he was saying. 

He’s not chatting, exactly, but he’s letting Lovett know he wouldn’t be anywhere but here, nose against Lovett’s face, holding his close and dear while Tommy just keeps touching him, stroking him, stomach and chest and thighs, and nowhere near his cock, his torso a pleasant pinning weight on Lovett’s legs. 

_ I like it when you hold me down, after, _Lovett had told them, what feels like a lifetime ago. He’d wanted to be reminded, then, that they still wanted him after the sex was over. 

He can have that now, with or without the sex. A boyfriend holding him close. A second boyfriend in his ear, saying, “You make me so happy,” and Lovett isn’t fucking crying. It would be ridiculous when he has — everything he never would have dreamed of, the totality of his life saturated in colors he hadn’t known to crave. 

Lovett — fuck it, Lovett is definitely crying, and Ronan drags the calloused pad of his thumb under Lovett’s eyes with a tenderness that aches.  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Lovett babbles. 

Tommy makes a shushing noise, crawling up his body — not all the way, but enough to plant his face against Lovett’s chest, dispersing his body weight across Lovett like an insanely weighted blanket. Like the one he got from Favs and Emily for his birthday, it instantly stills his legs and his heart. “You’re where you’re supposed to be,” Tommy assures him, and wraps his spare hand around Ronan. 

Lovett doesn’t doubt it, except for when he does. 

“I love date night,” Ronan says. He drops a kiss on Lovett’s mouth. 

Lovett breathes deeply. He feels like he’s all skin, every part of him connected to someone. One of his someones. Three weeks ago, he’d groaned at the nautical exhibit, but he’d been performing. He’d loved it, because Tommy had been having the time of his life; a little bit of Tommy’s happiness had belonged to him, like he’d gained an electron.

It means something, coming from Ronan, from Tommy, that this weekend that is objectively tailored for him to be counter to what they want and need, that they love him and that it cuts both ways, the joy. 

“I also love date night,” Lovett says, to be clear. Tommy keeps — dragging his face along Lovett’s stomach, giving up electron after electron until Lovett feels he could burst.


End file.
